Setting the Legal Tone Workshop #1

This workshop focused on AI voice cloning in the creative industries and the legal protection of voice rights. This workshop functioned as a knowledge exchange opportunity and research focus group. The team is currently analysing the findings.

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Why host a workshop? 

AI deep fakes create ‘misuse’ of an individual’s personal image, but little is known about whether this ‘personal image’ includes the voice. Despite recent emphasis on the legal and ethical implications of rights pertaining to image and voice, the legal and ethical implications of AI vocal deep fakes are still relatively under-explored, particularly for those whose lives and livelihoods are directly threatened by AI ‘voice cloning’ technologies. With a focus on the creative industries, we seek to understand the characteristics of the voice and how to protect it by understanding the legal, linguistic and ethical dimensions of ‘personality of the voice’. This extends to tensions and transformations taking place across the creative industries and can apply to music, performance and licensing issues. In this workshop we ask; what are the characteristics of personality in voice, and can they be protected? What are the concerns affecting the creative industries about AI use? Where do the opportunities lie?

 

Our aim was to engage directly with stakeholders in this area, allowing our research to benefit directly from the experiences of those who are most affected by this issue. 

 

This event was organised by:

Dr Jenn Chubb (Sociology)

Dr James Tompkinson (Language and Linguistic Science)

Dr Peter Harrison (Law School)

 

This event was funded by Yorvoice, Sparks funding which is drawn from the Research Development Fund funded directly by the University of York.

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For more information, see our forthcoming blog.

 

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